WATCH the shocking moment gangs of criminals posing as workmen steal lorry-loads of parcels in brazen broad daylight robberies.
In one case a groups of yobs are understood to have purchased a haulage firm using a dead man’s details before using HGVs to nab parcels.
Shockingly the criminally owned firm was hired as a subcontractor by an unwitting UK transport company before making off with a lorry load of goods.
After the firm was subcontracted by a legitimate business one of the criminal company’s HGVs was loaded with goods but disappeared without making delivery.
The bold tactic has seen hundreds of successful robberies as criminals purchase haulage firms to cover their tracks before making off with freight loads of goods.
Staggering footage shows the scale of the UKs freight theft problem laid bare.
Video shows groups cutting their way into storage depots, robbing trucks mid-delivery, executing bold broad daylight thefts and breaking into vehicles while they sit in traffic.
In one shocking clip an entire cargo container is whisked away from a storage depot on the back of a lorry – never to be seen again.
Other footage shows robbers hanging onto the back of moving lorries, stealing goods from inside the HGVs mid-delivery.
Gangs of criminals working in tandem with one another nab package after package from the back of delivery trucks while they sit stopped on the side of the road.
The fraud appears to follow a pattern with legitimate companies being bought up by criminal gangs.
The groups of thieves proceed to pick up several cargoes before vanishing with their plunder.
Cases of a similar nature are being investigated up and down the UK as haulage firms are targeted for their cargo.
One woman, known as Allison – who runs a haulage company, told the BBC she subcontracted to a criminally owned firm.
She said: “Their insurance was in place, their operators’ licence was in place.”
The lorry arrived at the manufacturing company, a forklift truck loaded it up with DIY products and the lorry drove off, she says.
Making off with a whopping £75,000 worth of cargo the gange used fake plates on the lorry to cover their tracks.
Allison said: “The first we knew about it was the destination company rang us and said, ‘where’s our load gone?’”
She tried to ring the subcontractor, but the number had been disconnected.
The criminal firm that had robbed Allison was known as Zus Transport, a month before the theft it had been sold by its previous owners.
The takeover was funded by a bank transfer from a company owned by a UK-based Romanian lorry driver named Ionut Calin.
Mr Calin seemingly purchased a network of five transport companies this year, including Zus Transport.
Bizarrely, he passed away in 2024 months before his bank details had been used to buy several of the companies and his name used to register three of them at Companies House.
An investigation uncovered a relative of Mr Calin and her husband – Benjamin Mustata – had been behind the purchases.
When confronted over his involvement in Zus Transport and the alleged thefts Mustata denied any involvement.
It comes as freight theft in the UK rises from £111 million last year, from £68 million in 2023.
